


With My Last Breath

by AvoidingAverage



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (temporary), Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, First Kiss, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Mute Jaskier | Dandelion, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Torture, major angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28319892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvoidingAverage/pseuds/AvoidingAverage
Summary: “You know how this ends.”The bard swallows and summons up the mask of confidence better suited to wooing crowds. “One can only hope it includes an end to stupid questions.”They jerk the chair he’s chained to backwards and tilt it until the only thing keeping it upright are their hands. Behind him, another drags the tub into place. He pants, struggling through the panic and the petty need to keep them from knowing that they’re getting to him. He knows it’s a losing battle.“Last chance, bard,” the hated voice whispers into his ear.He fills his lungs with the fetid smelling air of the prison and tries to find the resolve that had been enough to make him face Nilfgaard alone.A sigh. “Have it your way.”The water closes over his head.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 54
Kudos: 912





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My dear friends on Discord requested some heavy angst and for me to hurt this poor bard. I hope this fuels your angsty hearts. <3

Sometimes Jaskier wonders why he ever thought following a Witcher would lead to anything but death. 

It was their nature, the world said. Geralt’s gore covered body and surly personality had agreed. There was no happy ending even for the warriors. No soft bed or warm fire—if anything they were lucky if they could find someone willing to allow them to sleep with a roof over their head. 

But Jaskier had not chosen the moniker Dandelion because he flourished among the immaculate gardens at court. 

(Not that it meant he didn’t hope for a place to linger, to grow deep and strong enough to weather any storm.)

So he ignores the curses and grunts that do anything but encourage. He disregards the insults to his skills or the moments when Geralt sneered with the other members of his audience. He’s familiar with the sting of being useless, unnecessary, unwanted. 

He lets himself believe that if he just tries hard enough they’ll change their mind. If he convinces the world that Witcher’s aren’t monsters, maybe Geralt will see him as more than another nuisance. He paints a picture of what it would be like if Geralt looked at him like he had Yennefer or if he finally recognized Jaskier’s heart where it lay at his feet. 

He’s had plenty of time to rebuild and design these fantasies now. Plenty of time to let the bitter realization that they would never be more than the dreams of a fool. Hours to dedicate to the look in Geralt’s eyes when he turned his back on him for good. 

It’s been eighteen days since he last saw the sun. 

* * *

They’re running again. Maybe they never truly stop—not since Nilfgaard and Cahir decided to rip the Continent apart. 

This time Geralt’s eyes are wide with something close to panic and Jaskier doesn’t need to see the Witcher look over at Ciri to know that there won’t be some miraculous escape. Roach has always been braver than she should be, but she was never meant for speed. Never meant for carrying Geralt’s bulk along with Ciri’s slight frame. Even Jaskier’s old gelding, Buttercup, is beginning to flag. 

Behind them, he imagines that he can hear the soldiers that had spotted them attempting to cut across to the north and relative safety of Kaer Morhen. It had been a calculated risk born from the dark circles lingering beneath the former princess’ eyes and a few plaintive looks from Jaskier. They’d barely managed to grab their tired mounts before they’d been flying down the road. 

“This isn’t working!” He shouts above the sound of their flight. 

Geralt doesn’t respond, too busy searching for an answer that Jaskier knows he won’t find. 

It’s the fear in the warriors eyes that decides things. Even after all the pain and suffering he’d experienced at the hands of Geralt—after even the Mountain and worse—he’s still the fool in love with him. 

He takes a breath and hauls back on the reins sharply enough that Buttercup rumbles a protest. Geralt turns back in time to see Jaskier throw himself clumsily out of the saddle and draw his sword.

“Jaskier!” Geralt’s voice is a study in familiar irritation and impatience. “What the fuck are you doing? Get on—“

“Ciri, get on Buttercup and go,” he orders, ignoring the way the Witcher gapes. “Roach can’t carry both of you and you’ll make better time that way. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

He figures he can buy them an hour or so before the Nilfgaardians realize he’s alone. That would have to be enough to make a difference. 

Geralt looks pale as a freshly drawn sword in the moonlight. “Jaskier…”

“ _ Go _ !” He says again and tries not to think about the emotion that floods him when he hears them take off again. 

It was too much to hope for a goodbye. 

* * *

“Where is the Witcher taking the princess?”

The question is familiar now, as is the blow that follows. 

Jaskier let’s the momentum snap his head to the side, blinking away the dark spots that linger in his vision. He tastes iron and lets his tongue run over the new gash in his cheek. His lungs ache with the cough created by too many days in a freezing cell without anything more than a few pieces of hard bread and moldy water. 

Rough hands thread through his matted hair and forces his face up to face the familiar face of the man brought there to break him. Privately, the thought makes him laugh because he’s already given that power to another, even crueler muse. 

“This stops as soon as you tell us what you know,” the man says with a poor attempt at lying. Jaskier knows only death or rescue is the only way out of this prison. 

He licks his chapped and bloody lips. “Maybe I enjoy pain.”

His head is released quickly enough that he has to breathe through the resulting dizziness. The door to his cell opens a moment later and he hears another set of feet move closer. In his first week, he might have tried to run for the exit, but now he knows he’s too weak to make it far. A broken right leg ensures he won’t be running anywhere. 

The soldier who enters is unfamiliar, but the tub in his hands isn’t. 

Jaskier’s hands clench into shaking fists. 

Another soldier empties two buckets of water into a tub just larger than what someone might have wanted to use to wash up before bed in. The head torturer watches Jaskier’s pale face with satisfaction, taking the time to run his fingers over the surface of the water. 

“You know how this ends.”

The bard swallows and summons up the mask of confidence better suited to wooing crowds. “One can only hope it includes an end to stupid questions.”

They jerk the chair he’s chained to backwards and tilt it until the only thing keeping it upright are their hands. Behind him, another drags the tub into place. He pants, struggling through the panic and the petty need to keep them from knowing that they’re getting to him. He knows it’s a losing battle. 

“Last chance, bard,” the hated voice whispers into his ear. 

He fills his lungs with the fetid smelling air of the prison and tries to find the resolve that had been enough to make him face Nilfgaard alone. 

A sigh. “Have it your way.”

The water closes over his head. 

* * *

“He isn’t coming.”

Lungs burning—

“Would he do this for you?”

Water filling his ears until all he can hear is his rabbiting heartbeat. 

“You’re a fool.”

He knows. 

“He isn’t coming.”

He knows that too. 

* * *

His knees hit the concrete with a dull snap of agony. He’s too weak to do more than collapse weakly on his side, curling into a ball while he shakes. He can’t seem to stop gasping, hurtling back and forth across the edge of the panic attack left behind by the water. 

Eventually, he forces himself upright with his hands still wrapped around the ragged remains of his shirt. He can’t manage to get to his feet so he crawls on bruise knees forward. The movement sends jagged waves of agony courtesy of his broken leg and he has to stop every few feet to breathe through the nausea. He risks a glance at the injured leg and winces at the swollen, discolored limb. 

If the torture didn’t kill him, the infection would. 

“You’re okay,” he rasps to himself, “Geralt has probably got Ciri safely away...He’ll come back now.”

He reaches the wall a lifetime later and scans the crudely carved lines in the wall before grabbing a rock left nearby. His hands flex wildly around the stone, dropping it twice, before he’s able to drag it over the wall to join the others. 

Twenty marks for twenty days trapped in hell. 

Jaskier can’t be certain that his count is accurate anymore. More and more often, he loses time and he has no meals or consistent schedules to indicate when a day has passed. The only thing he can be sure is that he’s been dragged out of the room for a new lesson in pain twenty times. Each time he had done everything in his power to keep them far away from where Geralt and Ciri might be. 

He still keeps track despite the flaws. The tiny lines are the only proof that he’s still alive. That he hasn’t given away the most important thing he has left. Each line tells him he’s one more day closer to when Geralt will save him. 

He has to believe there will be some kind of happy ending. Even after all the ways Geralt has told him he was meaningless or an annoyance, the Witcher has never left him to die at the hands of the countless monsters and bigoted villagers they’d faced. 

If not, why should he keep fighting to survive?

* * *

“I almost feel sorry for you.”

The idea is laughable, but Jaskier can’t seem to form words through the dull throb in his head. All he can seem to do is focus on the slow drag of air through lungs that wheeze and rattle. 

He’s so tired. What would he give to have a few hours to sleep in a warm bed. 

The torturer moves into view, face twisted in an attempt at a sympathetic smile. “You’ve held on for so long, haven’t you? I can only imagine what he must have done to earn such loyalty.”

_ If life could give me one blessing— _

“Did you love him? It must not have been mutual for him not to come to your rescue.”

At that, Jaskier manages to rally his failing strength enough to glare. 

A sigh. “I suppose you’re committed to this attempt to save a Witcher incapable of the love you’re clinging to. A shame really,” he says with a shrug before he pulls a vial of clear liquid out of his pocket. “Maybe we can find another way to make your stay here useful—“

They’re interrupted by a knock at the cell door and one of the younger soldiers steps into the room. He scans the space with a curl of distaste and Jaskier can only imagine what he looks and smells like now. Part of him hopes it’s vile enough to send him running. 

“What is it?” He asks, irritated at the pause mid-monologue. 

“The Witcher, sir,” a nervous glance to Jaskier before he continues, “He’s been spotted.”

“Where at? Is the princess with him?

For the first time,Jaskier is just as eager for an answer to his questions. 

“In the north-“ Jaskier’s shoulders go loose as he realizes that Geralt made it to Kaer Morhen, “-There was no sign of the princess.”

The torturer curses. “Have they brought the beast into custody?”

Jaskier bares his teeth in a silent snarl at the insult. 

The soldier looks nervous, clearly less than enthused about being the one to share this news. “No, sir. The men in pursuit were called back to the front to deal with Aretuza.”

_ They made it. They were safe.  _

The relief is enough that Jaskier’s head seems to float with it. It’s the first taste of happiness since the last meal he’d eaten with Ciri and Geralt the night before everything went wrong. He closes his eyes and pretends he can remember the joke that made Ciri throw back her head and laugh while Geralt looked on with the barest hint of a smile. 

The illusion shatters when rough hands drag him onto the table nearby and begin to strap him down. He tells himself he’s fighting against their hold but he knows it’s little more than twitches at this point. His broken leg drags across the edge of the table and his vision whites out, the world spinning wildly. He grits his teeth at the pressure of the strap across his throat, so much like a noose. 

He glares up at the man above him and hates him a little more when he only laughs. 

“You haven’t realized it yet, have you?” His tormentor leans forward to croon into Jaskier’s ear so every word can be heard, “Now that he’s safe, he won’t be coming back for you.”

The words strike somewhere fragile far beneath the physical body they’d already destroyed. 

All at once the look on Geralt’s face when he’d told them to leave him behind makes a terrible sort of sense. For all his flaws, the Witcher preferred to save as many lives as possible and upheld his own code of honor. Where Jaskier had hoped that the warrior might have finally seen past the image of the bumbling boy who’d followed him from Posada, Geralt had been coming to terms with what it would cost to keep Ciri safe. 

Jaskier. 

Maybe that was why he hadn’t argued or looked back. He’d merely tossed Ciri over to Jaskier’s horse and dug his heels into Roach’s sides. It had been the bard that had watched the distance growing between them with grief. The knowledge burns worse than the worst of his injuries. 

He’s not going to cry. Not here where it will only lead to more hurt. 

He tells himself that can be for later, when he can pretend no one will know. Crying in front of his enemies will only prove that they’ve broken him and if pettiness is the only way he continues to stay alive, he’ll do it. 

“Ah yes,” the man above him says, “You’re finally beginning to understand.”

Jaskier stares up at the ceiling and tries to let his mind go blank. His sorrow is not for public consumption. 

There’s little he can do when they grab his jaw and force his lips to part with a backhanded blow that makes his ears ring. They pour the clear vial of liquid into his throat and plug his nose to force him to swallow it. 

The room begins to burn at the edges of his vision, the bodies around him going soft and dark. They release his face and blinks up at the ceiling, trying not to focus on the way his blood is beginning to burn in his veins and a cold sweat is breaking out over his forehead. His muscles tighten and release without his control until the table is shuddering under his spasm of body. His fingernails dig into the wood below, the snap of their lengths nonexistent against the wave of devastation dragging him under. 

He’s gasping, whining. Guttural noises spew untempered by rational thought from lips that are bloody from the teeth they house. 

The pain is unimaginable. 

It makes the blows seem paltry in comparison. It makes him wish for the brands to reappear or the hammers to find new nails In his body. 

He screams. Begs. 

It continues. 

If he had just a second to breathe, he could drag back the fractured pieces of his mind and control. But the waves keep crashing against him, burning through whatever hope he had for survival. It builds and builds and builds until his world is nothing but the burning at the backs of his eyes and the dogged way his heart continues to beat even when he begs it not to. 

* * *

When they return him to his cell, he can’t seem to spoil together his thoughts beyond the white noise left behind as the potion slowly fades from his system. 

For the first time, he doesn’t bother adding another line to the wall


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I started this, I assumed it would be a chill two-piece bit of angst. It quickly grew to double the size I planned and has taken a life of it's own.
> 
> Hopefully the ending is everything you hoped for.

He learns what it feels like to have salt rubbed into each of his wounds. 

His voice cracks and breaks as his screams reach their crescendo. The voices of his tormentors become his accompaniment, their laughter ringing like the cruelest instruments. Only this song has no end. 

Before this, before he knew the color of exposed bone or the way pain can build and build and build, he might have been foolish enough to believe the ballads that claimed such sacrifices were the height of heroics. He’d memorized countless sagas and epics that told of heroes suffering through the mightiest of trials in order to protect their beloved. Now he knows the truth. 

He isn’t a hero, beloved or otherwise. 

He’s just a fool who fell in love with a myth. 

* * *

“I’ve got something special for you.”

Jaskier doesn’t react to the words, just stares up at the pitted ceiling above him. His mind is safely distant from the burns that now litter his chest in the shape of one of his jailor’s rings. 

A finger traces over the sharp edges of bone and irritated flesh in a winding path up to his neck, wrapping around his trachea until he’s forced to look up at him or suffocate. A smile. “Aren’t you going to ask what it is?”

He licks his list and forces his damaged throat to create a sound unlike the screams of earlier that day. “What is it?”

“Good boy.” His neck is released and Jaskier lets it flop weakly to the side, unwilling to go through the effort of pretending to care about what new horror they’d created for him. 

There’s a clink of metal against the rough stone floor--a jarring note against their usual pattern in this room. By now, they should be releasing him from the table and tossing him back into the cell with a small piece of bread if he’s lucky or nothing if he’s honest. Either way, the night would give his injuries time to grow stiff and awkward in time to be truly miserable when he was moved the next morning.

His fractured thoughts darted like fireflies in a dark night, disappearing before he could reach out and capture them. Around him, he could feel air shifting with the movements of the guards and their snickering growing in volume as they observed whatever indignity they’d imagined for him. 

Then something slips over his head and tightens around his jaw.

At first, he thinks it’s another tie designed to keep him still on their table. That thought disappears with a new panic as his jaw is roughly forced open so a rough metal piece could be shoved across his tongue to the edge of his throat. He gags, eyes wide and panicked.

It feels like he’s choking. The metal drags over his tongue and fills his mouth with fresh blood as his movements cut thin lines into the sensitive skin of his tongue and cheeks. Tears drip down his cheeks to slide into hair already damp with sweat and he begins to wonder if this will be the moment when they finally go beyond what he can survive.

“Look at him cry!”

“Here I thought we’d beaten the fight out of you,” another cruel voice laughs.

A hand settles over his forehead, pressing him back into the table until all he can do is stare up into hate-filled eyes and gasp noisily. Fingers trace over the tightened straps of the gag that now prevents Jaskier from shaping the pleas that have filled this room like smoke, dismissive and tasting like ash on his tongue. They press against the rough metal until Jaskier wonders if he’ll have bruises.

“On’t,” he begs with slurred words, pride long gone now. “ ‘leas ‘on’t.”

“Poor little bard,” his tormentor crooned, gentling his touch until Jaskier’s skin tingles faintly, “you know better than to beg for something you know you don’t deserve.”

* * *

He begins to hate when the darkness of unconsciousness is chased away by the light of reality. Reality means coming face to face with an eternity with only his naïveté to keep him company. 

There’s no one coming for him. Not now. 

* * *

He hears the door open as if from a distance. It’s getting easier to drift now and he knows that the end of suffering is coming—one way or another. 

Immediately, he curls tighter into the miserable ball he’s been in since their last session, knees and forehead touching the wall. It forces the gag to press even harder against his skin, but he needs the cold stone wall to numb the worst of his migraine and swollen face. The footsteps come closer and he can’t help the whimper that escapes through gritted teeth. 

_ Just walk by, please, please, walk by _ , he thinks desperately.

The sensation of hands on his bare skin still makes him flinch, tremble in terrified little bursts that dig at his wounded pride. The potion they force down his throat every few days keeps him overly sensitive even after it's left his system, ensuring there is plenty of fun to be had at his expense. The worst is the way it leaves him unable to do more than tremble feverishly, too weak to do more than lay where he’d fallen. Unlike their usual routine, the hands move away at his first nearly inaudible sound of pain. A laughable worry at this point. 

Jaskier hears the soft scuff of a footstep across the rocky floor of his cell before the hands are back. This time they reach awkwardly around him, seeming to look for a place to grab him that isn’t caked in gore. He knows that’s a lost cause. The metal of the gag is practically fused to his skin now by a layer of blood and grime, making his features distort with the swelling. He imagines he feels them shudder when they move to the hinge of his jaw and pause above the thready pulse that moves in time with the ache in his limbs. 

Jaskier tries not to think about all the times the man who’d spent weeks destroying him body and soul had tucked tangled hair behind his ear in a mockery of kindness or wiped away the path of a tear that had escaped from his tightly closed eyes.

No, he knows that gentleness was just a precursor to more pain.

“ _ Thank fuck _ -” the voice drags him back from where his mind was listlessly drifting and he feels the man turn to speak to someone else, “-He’s still breathing.”

Not for much longer he wants to tell them, but can’t summon up the effort. It’s been a race for weeks between the fluid in his lungs and the infection burning in his blood for what would kill him. Either of those were preferable than giving his torturer the pleasure.

He loses time.

“—need to move quickly.”

“Triss?”

A breeze sweeps over his feverish skin and he shivers, causing the person holding him to tighten their hold until he makes another soft sound of pain. The warmth of their touch is an unexpected comfort and one he knows better than to expect to continue. If they knew he wasn’t in pain, they would begin the next round of torture.

“She knows to expect us.”

He’s floating above the floor, blood from newly disturbed cuts dripping down his loose fingertips to the floor. Breadcrumbs to lead his soul back to where he’d lost it. 

“Jaskier?” The voice is close enough to rumble against his cheek and his eyes roll beneath closed lids. “Can you hear me?”

He frowns, shivering through another wave of discomfort when his leg is jolted as they move through a doorway. Some of the other guards had enjoyed teasing him with questions he couldn’t answer with the gag still in his mouth, beating him when he inevitably failed. A rough croak escapes his mouth, like the last breath of a dead man, and the arms around him tighten once again. 

The bard knows better than to fight their hold. 

There’s blood in his mouth, coppery and wrong as everything around him. It dribbles down the back of his throat and makes everything smell like the iron that had been used to bind him. It’s impossible to swallow all of it with his throat mangled like it is. He considers fighting harder, speeding up the process, but discounts it a moment later as a waste of his final moments here.

_ I’m dying _ , he thinks with a wry twist of his lips. He can feel the fever burning beneath his eyelids and in the crack of his dry lips. He coughs, ragged and tastes blood. Despite that, he knows only a grim satisfaction that he’d never broken or given away the location of where Geralt and Ciri were hidden. 

His breath catches on his throat and he flounders, unable to fill his lungs for several heart stopping moments. Thrashing in the grip of his captor, he makes a choked off animalistic sound when they grip him tighter. 

“—dying!”

“Get the portal—“

“Jaskier, hold on!”

* * *

Hands press against his face, tilting his jaw until the jagged metal in his mouth causes blood to dribble down his chin. Instinctively, he tries to reach up to wipe it away but his arms feel weighted down with bricks. His breath is loud in the room, requiring him to force the air through the small slits around his mouth in a wheeze. He can do nothing but let them maneuver him for their examination.

“Can you get it off?” The voice sounds nearly frantic, rough in a way Jaskier imagines his own voice would be if he could still use it.

A carefully calm woman’s voice watches the cool hands soothing over his fever-hot skin. He doesn’t bother to try to recognize who she is--his mind and memories are clouded with sickness and the silence of his cell. “The locks are useless--they never intended for it to come off.”

Someone curses, low and vicious.

“I’ll need to gather some tools to remove it without hurting him any more,” she continues steadily, “His skin will need to be cut in a few places.”

“You’ll hurt him.” The observation is said without inflection though anyone could feel the fury simmering beneath.

“I can’t give him anything for pain until I see the extent of the damage, Geralt. It could send him into shock.”

There is a beat of tense silence where he can feel the hands wrapped loosely around his wrist, clench and unclench like a cat fussing with a blanket.

Then, “You’re sure?”

“It’s the only way.”

Jaskier drifts, mind too broken to focus on the conversation around him and the noises of their movements. He already knows there isn’t anyway he can stop them.

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t try the moment strong hands pin him to the firm mattress by his shoulders and force his head back.

His eyes flash open--wide with terror--in time to see a fire-hot tool pass over his face. He can smell the stench of burning metal and the memory of his own flesh burning. His mouth tries to open on a scream, but is halted by the hated gag an instant later.

“ ‘ON’T! Mmf--’top!” He can’t see the faces beyond where his eyes are permanently fixed to the metal tool as it lowers towards his face. Can’t hear anything past the voice of the man who’d broken him.

_ I think I’ll take your teeth next, hmm? Will you still sing so sweetly once I burn your tongue out of your mouth? _

“‘Top,” he pleads as the gag around his face tightens beyond the point of pain. “ ‘top it!”

His ability to form words ends on a wail that is muffled by the metal biting into his cheeks and tongue. Blood mixes with tears in a dark river running over his skin and he tries to thrash against the mounting pressure, but is stopped by the implacable hold of his captors. Chest rising and falling in sharp, uncontrollable bursts, he chases after the dark spots in his vision.

Anything but focusing on the sensation of his skin tearing and the heat of the burning metal--

* * *

Consciousness comes back with bitter familiarity. 

First, the ache in his limbs and the dull throb of the infection that’s seeped from his leg into his blood. Then comes the steady pressure on his chest that makes breathing difficult. He forces his way through the resulting panic attack with as much grace as practice can offer, counting the rhythm of each expansion of his lungs to the beat of his thudding heart. His jaw aches and his mouth tastes like copper and pain, tongue swollen enough that swallowing is difficult. 

What is unfamiliar is the soft brush of cotton against his bare skin and comfortable pressure of bandaging along his leg. His head feels like it’s filled with cotton, thoughts sluggish. He keeps his breathing steady in contrast to the way his heart is racing in an effort to linger here in the safety of the silence and temporary warmth. He knows better than to expect it to stay. It must be some attempt to patch the worst of his injuries before some fresh hell is unleashed on him.

It’s several minutes before he realizes that the reason his face feels so odd is because the metal gag has been removed. Clumsily, his fingers lift up to trace over the indentation left behind by the brace that covered his nose and bisected his skull to connect in the back. The skin is sensitive enough there that he knows it’s bruised, but it’s strange to feel any part of himself without the layer of grime he’d accumulated for so long. He can’t remember what his face might have looked like before.

The sound of someone shifting nearby has his eyes slitting open to consider which guard had been posted to watch him. It takes a moment before he can blink away the blurriness left behind by his dry eyes to make out the large man sprawled awkwardly in a small chair beside the bed, head leaning dangerously on one large arm that’s pale without the armor that usually covers it.

Jaskier’s heart plummets.

“No,” he croaks, watching the way Geralt twitches and begins to shift at the wretched sound, “nononononono”

Geralt blinks awake and immediately leans over the bed. “Jaskier? What’s--”

Jaskier’s splintered fingers grip his hair, pulling until his head aches and he can focus on the pain instead of a new wave of grief. “Nononononono,” he repeats, voice rising in panic, “They said you were safe.  _ You got away! _ ”

The Witcher’s hands reach out to try to keep himself from hurting himself further. Calloused fingers loop around bony wrists in a gentle, but implacable, hold that urges them back to the bed. “Jaskier, calm down! You’re hurting yourself!”

Jaskier lashes out, reacting to the familiar sensation of being held against his will and the new knowledge that everything he’d suffered was for  _ nothing _ . Even in his suffering, he hadn’t been able to protect Geralt. He hadn’t saved Ciri. They were trapped in this hell with him.

He wasn’t a hero. He was  _ nothing _ .

Just like they’d told him.

The door nearby slams open and he knows more soldiers are coming to contain him, to drag him back to the cell where he’d been left for so long. He screams, arching his back, and pits all of his weakened strength into getting free. Golden eyes--wide with panic--hover just out of reach above him.

A hand that crackles with violet fire comes down over his face and his world goes dark.

* * *

“--barely recognize him.”

“Cahir’s men had him a long time. We’re lucky he survived as long as he did.”

A sigh and the soft scrape of a hand over a scruffy chin. “Doesn’t look like luck to me.”

“This isn’t your fault, Geralt.”

“We both know that isn’t true.”

* * *

The next time he opens his eyes, he can feel the drugs in his system. They’re softer than the potions that had been forced down his throat in the cells, painting the world in blurry hues. It reminds him of the days he’d spent in his parent’s library reading in a patch of colored sunlight beneath stained glass windows. Warm and hazy.

Opening his eyes feels like an insurmountable task, but he has to know what to expect when the worst happens. This time he forces himself to take in the details of the room around him. One of his eyes is still swollen enough that his vision is blurry, but he can still make out the simple plastered walls littered with drying plants and a few small sketches. A window nearby has been opened to let in a gentle breeze that smells nothing like the rot and misery that had been his world for so long.

Part of him is surprised that there isn’t a hulking Witcher seated in the chair next to him.

Instead the room is empty aside from the abandoned chair and a table ladened with a pitcher and metal cup. There’s a muffled sound outside the door, but he relaxes when it isn’t followed by footsteps or the scrape of a lock. He’s considering attempting to get upright so he can wash away the blood lingering in his mouth and soothe his raw throat when someone taps gently on the door a moment before they step through.

Jaskier freezes like a hare in the sight of a predator, but the woman only smiles gently at him. He can smell the hint of chaos he’d learned to recognize in Yennefer and guesses that she was the healer who’d patched him up. It doesn’t ease any of the tension in him. He knows better now.

“It’s good to see you awake,” she says, “I’m Triss.”

The name rings like a dulled bell, triggering scattered memories of a striga hunt gone wrong and a few passing statements from Yennefer. He considers her with a well-trained blank expression--he knows how easy it is to enrage his captors.

“How are you feeling?”

He shrugs.

She steps closer, clearly watching him for any sign of discomfort before she settles into the chair beside his bed. He’s grateful that she only folds her hands in his lap instead of reaching for him.

“You’re in Novigrad at my workshop.” Her voice remains even, letting him fall into the rhythm easily. “We brought you here four days ago in order to heal the damage. You’ve got an infection in your lungs and leg which is why breathing is difficult currently.”

His fingers shift upwards towards his face, hovering over the empty space where the gag once sat before drifting down to his throat in silent question.

Triss nods, lips in a grim line. “We removed the gag and the lock when you first arrived. It damaged your tongue and throat which will make speaking difficult for a while. I’ll bring you some tea with honey when you can stay awake long enough to drink it.”

As if her words were the trigger, Jaskier feels his eyes begin to drift downward. She makes a soft sound as she stands back up and he forces himself to watch her walk over to the pitcher and pour him a glass of water. Triss presses it to his lips gently, her arm reaching out to help raise his head enough to drink.

“I’ll be back in a little while with some broth,” she tells him. “We’ll have to be careful not to upset your stomach until it’s used to regular food again.”

The water feels like a miracle cure, cool and soothing against the soreness of his abused mouth. Nothing like the murky filth they’d left him with in his cell. His eyes flutter as he drinks greedily until Triss pulls it away. His head falls back against the pillows, exhaustion dragging him down.

She risks a gentle hand against his forehead and he tries not to press into the kind touch. “We killed the bastards,” she whispers fiercely, “Every single one of them.”

Blue eyes raise to find her looking off as though she were imagining the scene.

“They won’t ever touch you again. You’re safe.”

Jaskier pretends he believes that.

_________________________

He dreams of calloused fingers threading through his own, thumb brushing against the pulse in his wrist with a subtle caress.

Even softer is the voice that seems seeped in misery, “I’m so sorry.”

* * *

He sleeps aided by whatever potion mixed into the teas that Triss provides. They’re gentler than his tormentor’s, but they still linger, dulling his thoughts. Or maybe that’s the lingering effect of his injuries.

Triss becomes a constant comfort--although he tries to ignore the sensation. He watches her carefully when she’s in the room, but she has yet to do anything explicitly harmful. She tells him what each of her potions and treatments do and is rewarded by the way his breath no longer rattles in his chest and his collection of injuries are reduced to a dull throb. Her hands are the first to smooth a blanket or to offer soup or broth to fill his stomach. 

But she isn’t the only visitor to his bedside.

One morning, he opens his eyes to find Yennefer prowling through the room like a caged lioness, examining the plants adorning the wall and fingers twitching in a silent agitation. Oddly, the sight of the mage soothes some of the lingering paranoia in his mind. Even if they’d always sniped at one another, he knows Nilfgaard could never replicate the barely restrained power of the sorceress. He stirs slightly, slowly sitting up and her head snaps toward him at the sound.

Violet eyes scan over him in quick judgement that leaves her looking out of sorts. “You look awful.”

The flat description makes his lips twitch with the ghost of humor.

“Triss says you’re healing,” she says after a pause, “You should be able to sing again soon.”

His eyes drop to the blanket, feeling his throat tighten. 

Yennefer sighs, looking aggrieved. “I never thought I’d miss your idle prattle, bard.”

He wonders if he’ll ever be able to chatter like that again without imagining the press of metal against his tongue.

For a long moment, they sit in an awkward silence. He wonders if she’s only come into the room to try to tease a few words out of him. The thought brings an unexpected sort of warmth and a new element of fantasy to his rescue. Yennefer of Vengerberg was hardly the type to waste her time at the bedside of a bard that she’d never cared for.

Jaskier isn’t sure how long he’s been staring off into some great middle distance before she speaks again.

“I’ve brought you something.”

He looks over at her, reaching for the curiosity he’d once known and finding only an ember of a once burning flame.

She doesn’t look at him as she stands and walks back to the doorway to fetch a bulky looking box. Something large shifts inside of it and he finds himself tensing instinctively. Yennefer seems to notice his hesitation because she pauses a few feet away and opens the package herself, tossing the box aside to reveal a relic of the past.

His lute.

His lungs seem to go sideways at the sight of it, burning in his chest. Fingers, bruised and freshly released from the splints that had righted the damage left behind by their dislocation, twitch. He licks his lips, unable to look away and hating himself for it.

“You forgot it,” Yennefer says awkwardly, “on your horse that night. Geralt asked me to take care of it until you were back.”

Jaskier blinks and tears drip down his cheeks.

She approaches like he’s some wild creature likely to spook and run at an unexpected noise. The lute is settled on his lap with gentle care and the weight of it feels like it's anchoring him to the earth. He raises his hands, hovering over the familiar brightness of the carved wood, but unable to touch. Part of him thinks his fingers would leave only scorch marks in their wake.

Yennefer’s voice jerks him out of whatever fugue state he’d entered, jerking his eyes up to where she watches him with something close to pity. “Oh, bardling…” she whispers. “What have they done to you?”

This time, the curve of his lip is bitter.

“I could...help you, you know. Take the memories from your mind.”

His eyes dart back to her and his mouth goes dry. 

The thought of erasing the cruel curve of his torturer’s mouth or the sound his bones made as they broke beneath their fists. He thinks of the gag being pressed against his lips or the taste of blood filling his mouth. The silence left in the echoing space of the dark cell that had been his entire world for weeks. The knowledge of how long he could scream before his voice began to break--

_ Won’tsayitwon’ttellthemplease _

_ nonononononononononono _

“ _ Jaskier _ .” Her voice drags him back to the present to find the mage leaning over him, cupping his face in her hands. Violet eyes dart over his face as he gasps like a dying man, chest heaving. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

She repeats the promise as dark spots dance in his vision and a voice shouts his name in the corridor outside. His hands reach out blindly and wrap around his lute, letting the weight of it keep him from floating away.

He grits his teeth and tastes a sudden burst of anger like a lightning flash. It’s the first taste of something that feels true. Desperately, he grasps at the sensation, sinking into the brittle heat of his impotent rage. He thinks of the way they’d mocked him, forced him to beg for the mercy he knew would never come. The answer to her offer comes more easily then.

“No,” he rasps, wretched and wrathful. Her eyes snap up in surprise. “No, I want to remember.”

She stares at him, looking torn between relief at the first words from him since he’d awakened and worried by the look in his eyes.

Jaskier licks his lips and swallows hard, ignoring the familiar burn in his throat. “Did they suffer?”

Yennefer’s expression turns sharp as a blade. “Yes. We made sure of it--though I would have liked to linger longer.”

His answering smile is feral. “Good.”

* * *

That night he dreams of the table, feeling the press of the straps pinning him down by the neck and arms. He dreams that he’s drowning behind the gag, unable to draw breath when his lungs fill with blood.

_ Tell us where the Witcher is. Tell us and we’ll stop. _

Someone clutches him to a strong chest, rumbling gentle words in a voice that rarely spoke. He turns toward it blindly, something in him knowing that he’s safe there.

“Shh,” the voice murmurs as they rock back and forth, “I won’t let them hurt you again.”

Jaskier doesn’t open his eyes, just lets himself sink deeper.

* * *

“You can’t just keep lurking out here, Geralt.”

At the sound of the familiar name, Jaskier stirs, turning slightly to look at the closed door that muffles the conversation taking place in the hallway.

“He won’t want to see me,” Geralt argues. “Not after everything that happened.”

“Oh, I forgot you were working with Nilfgaard,” Triss says, sarcasm biting.

A growl.

The healer ignores the obvious warning. “He knows you rescued him.”

“Not fast enough.”

“He’s alive,” she says calmly, “He’s healing. You can’t keep treating him like he’s broken.”

Jaskier listens to footsteps shift and pictures Geralt pacing back and forth. “ _ You saw him _ \--” The Witcher’s voice is raw with grief, “--I barely even recognized him. If I’d just found him sooner--”

“You had to get Ciri away safely. You barely slept before you came back to find him.” Triss’ voice is painfully kind. “I saw you when you came to get Yennefer’s help--you had barely slept since he was taken.” She pauses and lowers her voice until Jaskier has to strain to hear, “You need to tell him how you feel.”

Geralt doesn’t answer and, after a while, Jaskier hears Triss walk away.

Jaskier opens his mouth, lips going to shape a name he’d called countless times. It catches in his throat, smothered by gritted teeth and a hard won habit.

_ Where is the Witcher? Where can we find him? _

No, he won’t tell them anything. He  _ won’t. _

_ Now that he’s safe, he won’t be coming back for you.  _

He breathes through the panic, pressing his fisted hand to his mouth to smother the sound. He closes his eyes and ignores the dampness on his cheeks.  _ Notrealnotrealnotrealnotreal _

Footsteps in the hallway. A voice calling his name.

_ Just walk by, please, please, walk by. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease-- _

Jaskier rolls onto his side and curls into a ball, ignoring the burst of pain in his leg at the sudden movement. His forehead presses against the cool stone of the wall. He lets it settle him against the memories that continue to press in. Weakly, he grips the blankets to pull them over his head in a makeshift shield. The darkness presses in like an old friend, soothing.

His mouth opens and closes, but no sound escapes.

* * *

Jaskier wakes from a fitful sleep and looks over at the chair instinctively. A Witcher sits with his back to the bed and a knife in his hand, eyes on the door. The light of the fire paints the pale sweep of his hair in shades of amber and gold. A silent sentinel prepared to leap forward at the first sign of danger.

He smiles and lets his eyes close once more.

* * *

It takes him another week before Triss urges him out of bed.

“You can’t just keep sleeping the day away, lark,” she says firmly to his plaintive look. “Your leg is looking better and your chest is clear. All you need to do now is walk.”

“Trying to get rid of me?” The tone of his voice falls too flat for it to be a joke, but she smiles anyway.

“If you get up, I’ll let you have dessert.”

He grumbles, but the part of him that might have been able to disobey the gentle command is long gone. It’s been replaced by the way he can’t seem to stop watching the door or Triss’ hands when she moves around him.    
  


Triss moves closer--eyes watching him for any sign of discomfort--and helps him maneuver to the edge of the bed. The splint on his leg is bulky, but the healer has assured him it will ensure that he can walk without much of a limp in just a few weeks. It was more than he’d ever expected in the cells so he doesn’t complain.

The ground is cold beneath his feet and he shivers slightly. Triss drapes another blanket around his thin shoulders, knowing how cold he gets without the weight he’d lost in Nilfgaard’s cells. He waits a beat, centering himself, and then pushes himself onto wobbling legs. It feels odd to reach his full height and he can’t quite remember the last time he’d been able to stand on his own.

The healer helps him take a few limping steps forward until his abused muscles begin to protest and he’s broken out into a cold sweat. She’s taken to murmuring soft encouragement under her breath as he digs deep into his weakened supply of strength. Her hands wrap around his shoulders when he stumbles. “That’s enough for today,” she declares.

He can’t help but be relieved. Instead of leading him back to the bed, Triss settles him onto the chair. She leans over to strip the bed with practiced movements and tosses them to the side to be washed. Jaskier watches her and pretends that he’s capable of assisting...as soon as he catches his breath.

The door comes open a few seconds later and Yennefer sweeps in looking like she was on her way to a ball. Her eyes widen in surprise to see him upright before a genuine smile blooms.

“Bardling,” she says, looking delighted, “you’re looking better.”

“I look like shit,” he replies with good humor.

“I assumed that was your natural skin tone.”

“Bitch.”

A grin. "Asshole.”

Triss finishes making the bed and turns back to him. “How’re you feeling? Anything hurting?”

He shrugs. 

“You’re making good progress. Are you still having nightmares?”

Jaskier looks away, unwilling to bring the images that haunted them into the light of day. He pretends he doesn’t see the look they exchange.

* * *

The next week is spent hobbling around the little room in slowly expanding circuits. His leg still aches, but Triss assures him that that’s just a side effect of healing. She adds stretching to the list of activities he’s allowed to do and Yennefer joins him, smirking like a satisfied cat when she’s able to bend herself nearly in half while he can’t even manage to reach his toes. 

They all pretend not to notice the Witcher-sized hole in their midst.

* * *

_ Where is the princess? _

Jaskier pants, body shifting against the cuffs on his wrists. His body arches, fighting to escape the brand that paints bright red lines across his chest. He shakes his head back and forth, unable to form words, unable to breathe through the screams that rip free from his mangled throats.

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.  _ He can’t breathe. _

_ Please _ , he begs the deities that have forgotten him,  _ please help me. _

But it’s not Melitele or any other god’s name that his lips shape--

“ _ Geralt _ !”

There’s a crash nearby and he opens his eyes in time to see Geralt throw open the door and race inside. His room was only dimly lit now by the dying fire, but he still manages to see the panic in the Witcher’s expression. Gold eyes dart around the room like he’s looking for the source of the fear that’s filling the air like a cancer.

Once he’s satisfied that there isn’t anyone hiding in the shadows nearby, Geralt lowers his weapon and crosses the room to where Jaskier is sitting up amidst rumpled sheets. His eyes rake over the bard like he’s searching for some kind of injury. He steps closer, tense like he’s debating running again.

“You…” he swallows, “Are you okay?”

Jaskier blinks, staring up at him. It feels like another fever dream even though he knows it can’t be. He thinks of all the nights he’s spent healing, safe in the knowledge that the Witcher was watching over him. The flashes of memories and Geralt’s voice begging him to hold on a little longer--as though the Witcher had been calling out for him all the times Jaskier had been screaming for someone to save him.

“You’re here,” the bard finally says, voice rough with an emotion that feels too big to name.

“I--I never left.” Geralt’s cheeks darken with the admission and he looks back at the door. “I know you don’t want to see me--”

“I do.”

The Witcher risks a step closer even though his face twists into a miserable expression Jaskier recognizes from the days when people called him the Butcher of Blaviken. Guilt. “It’s my fault you were taken. I should never have let you stay behind.”

“It was my choice.” Saying it aloud is enough to make his shoulders straighten in resolve. “I knew the risks.”

Geralt’s eyes close and he sags into the chair. His hands scrub over his face like he’s trying to see past the memory. “What they did to you…”

“It kept you safe.” There’s a wealth of emotion in each word, enough to make the Witcher look up at him in surprise and Jaskier’s lips to twist in a self-deprecating smile. “I’d do it again if it meant they wouldn’t take you or Ciri into that place.”

“Don’t. Don’t say that.”

“It’s the truth.”

Geralt’s eyes blaze. “I don’t deserve that sort of loyalty--not after all the ways I’ve hurt you.”

“It’s not just loyalty that made me do it,” Jaskier whispers and lets his eyes drop to where his hands rest on his lap. “It was never just loyalty, for me.”

“And now?” The words are fragile, bowing beneath the weight of all that has happened.

Jaskier closes his eyes and thinks of Posada and the sound of an elf king’s threats. He thinks of the smile he’s spotted from across crowded taverns when the people chant his name and the soft crackle of a fire in quiet nights at the edge of the world. He thinks of worried shouts and dry jokes. Blood and ichor. He remembers the pain of the words that were carved into his heart at the top of a mountain and the dull sorrow of watching golden eyes looking into violet.

It makes it easy to find his voice now. “Always.”

Geralt makes a rough sound and shifts forward in a burst of speed. Jaskier barely manages not to flinch when gentle hands cup his cheeks and warm breath mixes with his own. His eyes dart over Geralt’s face, tracing familiar features turned unfamiliar this close. A thumb drags over the line of his cheek bone as though tracing the ghosts of the trauma that once colored them. He hesitates, waiting for permission, so Jaskier leans forward to close the distance between them with a gentle tug on his shirt.

The first brush of their lips is chaste, seeping into his skin like the warmth of a fire. Geralt’s hands are gentle enough to make his heart ache and he presses closer with an eager noise. The scent of leather and the healing herbs that the Witcher collects fill his lungs with the smells of safety and  _ home _ .

When Geralt leans back, they’re both out of breath. A smile twitches at the edge of the Witcher’s lips, something close to wonder lingering in his eyes as he takes in the flush on Jaskier’s cheeks.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispers.

Jaskier leans forward to chase away the lingering sadness in the warrior’s expression. Somehow the words seem to come easily now. 

“Never.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it!
> 
> So the reference I used for the gag is a historical torture device called a ‘Witch’s Bridle’ or a ‘Scold’s Bridle’. You can find pictures online but they’re essentially a metal harness that bolts behind the person’s head and is lock. At the mouth, a metal piece like a jagged horse’s bit is placed on their tongue and cuts into the muscle of the wearer speaks or moves their tongue. Pretty terrible.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you'd like more angst, whump, and happy endings, check out some of my other stories or come hang out with me on tumblr @geraskierficrecs.


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